After the Jacobson siblings win a life-changing fortune in the lottery, they assume their messy lives will transform into sleek, storybook perfection—but they couldn’t be more wrong.

The four Jacobson children were raised to respect the value of a dollar. Their mother reused tea bags and refused to pay retail; their father taught them to budget before he taught them to ride a bike. And yet, now that they’re adults, their financial lives are in disarray.

The siblings reunite when their newly widowed father puts their Jersey Shore beach house on the market. Packing up childhood memories isn’t easy, especially when there’s other drama brewing. Matthew is miserable at his corporate law job and wishes he had more time with his son; Laura’s marriage is imploding in spectacular fashion; Sophie’s art career is stalled while her boyfriend’s is on the rise; and Noah’s total failure to launch has him doing tech repair for pennies.

When Noah sees an ad for a Powerball drawing, he and his sisters go in on tickets while their brother Matthew passes. All hell breaks loose when one of the tickets is a winner and three of the four Jacobsons become overnight millionaires. Without their mother’s guidance, and with their father busy playing pickleball in a Florida retirement village, the once close-knit siblings search for comfort in shiny new toys instead of each other.

It’s not long before the Jacobsons start to realize that they’ll never feel rich unless they can pull their family back together.

I can’t think of anything more escapist and delightful than the fantasy of a lotto-win. Instantly all of your problems are solved—smooth sailing ahead. Elyssa Friedland takes a deep dive into that misguided fantasy in her funny and wise summer novel Jackpot Summer.

The four adult Jacobson children were raised to be careful with money, but at the novel’s opening, they are all in various degrees of financial distress. Their recently widowed father announces that he sold their Long Beach Island house, and they need to gather to pack it up over the July 4th weekend. It is while gathered at the beach house that the youngest sibling, Noah, runs out to 7-Eleven and buys a Powerball ticket. Sisters Laura and Sophie throw in, but oldest brother Matthew and his wife think the lotto is for idiots and abstain. But the ticket is a winner and all chaos ensues.

I was sucked into this story from the very beginning. This is the rare novel that hooks you with a fun premise but then keeps you turning pages because the characters feel so real and expertly developed. Jackpot Summer mines every nuance of familial relationships. It left me with a renewed reverence for what matters and put a huge smile on my face.